What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015)

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What Happened, Miss Simone? was released on June 24, 2015, in the USA. The American documentary film was produced by Moxie Firecracker Films. The movie storyline was directed by Liz Garbus. The movie was based on the true story of Nina Simone, an African American singer, pianist, and civil right activist[1]

Plot

Nina Simone[2]

Eunice Waymon, an African American girl, has a prodigious talent for classical piano. She aspires to be the first African American woman pianist to have a concert at the Carnegie Hall. However, she was rejected by the school for a racial issue. Then, she shifts her education into a career as a singer in bars and nightclubs. As she changes her name to Nina Simone, her fame rise quickly with her singing style. As her career rises, she has a relationship and marries Andrew Stroud, a former New York cop who became her manager. Throughout her path to success, she receives abuses from her husband, acquires Bipolar Syndrome, and even hurts her child. She voices out her aspiration against racial discrimination with her style and befriends many activist leaders. Her songs become hits such as "Mississippi Goddam” and the hopeful “To Be Young, Gifted and Black" and carry the voice of African American struggle against racial discrimination up until today[3].

Black Empowerment

The film portrays how Nina Simone fights for African Americans' equality with her own style. She befriends Martin Luther King Jr. although her approach is different as she told King that she was not nonviolent. She has the same view as civil rights militants such as the Black Panther Party. It can be seen in one show that she asks her African American audiences "Are you ready to kill if necessary?". She believes that her art could not be separated from her origin as said "How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?". Within the film. it can be seen that she writes a "Mississippi Goddam" song in 1964 as responding to the slaughter of Medgar Evers and the bombing of four black girls in a church in Birmingham, Alabama. She sang the song while the march protest occurred in Selma with 40,000 marchers[4].

Controversy

During her childhood, it is explained that her education in piano has to be stopped because of her skin. She was rejected by the College for being African American despite her prodigy. She is also alienated as the African American tries to invade the White American world where a piano is only a special stage for white people[5].

References